Tutorial Assets

Step 1 - Type the text and make it 3D

OK let's get started; if you have some knowledge of the 3d tools in PS you know this is very easy, if you don't, you will find out just that; a very easy thing to do. Let's open up this nice stock image I have selected for our work.

Now just select the text tool from the tool bar.

Choose a simple medium/light gray color for the text.

I selected this font here, yet if you don't have it just select some other that is available in your system; I prefer a thick font for this.

For this Helvetica font I selected 110 for the size, yet it varies from font to font.

What you want is a big thick font that almost fills the horizontal space of the canvas as seen here.

Then proceed to the 3D menu and select Repousee- Text Layer.

In the dialog box that appears, select the shape preset shown and adjust the settings indicated. The 3D tools are quite taxing on the equipment, so depending on your system you could have to wait a bit for each step, just be patient.

Now we will also be using the 3D widget that appears on the left top corner of your image. These widget has 3 arrows to control the 3D object in three separate axis, and each arrow has 3 different handles that perform 3 different tasks as indicated here, for rotating, moving, and scaling. Familiarize with these controls so you can go through all the steps with ease.

Now using the widget, reposition the text with a bit of perspective as shown here. That is it we have 3d text that we can work with in a separate layer inside Photoshop.

Step 2 - Rotate the lights and texture the letters

Now its time to adjust the lights a bit so let's first choose the infinite light 1 and select the 3D Light rotate tool.

Now the infinite light has a similar widget to the 3D widget, yet only has rotate handles

Let's use these handles to rotate the light a bit as shown here; its also a good idea to familiarize yourself with these widget and how it affects the 3D object.

Let's now move on to the materials for the letters, so select the first material and from the diffuse folder icon choose load texture.

Select this texture and click OK.

Now adjust the U scale and the V scale as shown here.

Now the letters as you can see are divided in sections that have separate textures.

Now we need a texture for the bump channel so select load texture for the bump.

And select this texture that I have prepared for you, which is only a black and white version of the same texture with the contrast enhanced.

Now we need to adjust the scale so that it matches the color texture.

Then increase the bump level to 5.

Now we are finished with the material so let's save it by choosing new material; give it a name or just leave it as is.

Now let's make things easy and load the saved material for the rest of the sections.

Now that we have the materials set in all the sections let's adjust the lights a bit. Disable the second light and increase the intensity to 1.5

Now we need to rotate the light a bit as shown here to make the texture look its best, yet you might want to experiment and choose different settings.

Step 3 - Split the 3D object into separate letters and adjust each

We will now transform our object from a word onto separate letters we can adjust individually. But first let's increase the bump in each material to 7 to increase the effect of the bump texture.

OK now go to the 3D menu and select split Repousse Meshes.

Now what we get is separate meshes for each letter, and each have separate textures, but since we textured the word previously we don't have to work on each letter. Also now for moving and rotating each letter you now have to select the mesh rotate tool instead of the object rotate tool .

So let's start with the letter E so select it in the list.

The mesh control widget is the same as the object widget so you should be able to adjust the position in the same way. For the letter E, I adjusted as shown here.

This is the resulting rotation I have for my letter, yet as always you might prefer a different position.

I also lowered the letter a bit as shown here using the arrow handle.

Now do the same for each letter by selecting it from the scene list and positioning it as you like so it fits better on the image. Here is how I modified each of my letters, and that is it we have finalized this step.

Step 4 - Update the light position and convert the layer to a smart object

At this point before continuing, we will quickly adjust the lights a bit and convert our 3D layer to a smart object. So go ahead right click on the layer and select Convert to smart object.

To access the 3D layer to edit it just double click on the new smart object layer.

You will get a warning dialog box from Photoshop as you enter the smart object. We do this because of two reasons, first a 3d layer cant be used with masks which we will use and also converting it to a smart object reduces the complexity of the document ram requirements.

Once you are in the 3D smart object you can continue editing all the settings for the 3d object. At this point select the infinite light 1 and choose the light rotate tool.

Rotate the light a bit as shown here to get a better illumination on the letters overall

This is how the lights now affect our object, yet you might choose a slightly different position, which is OK but remember where the light is coming from on our scene.

As soon as you are finished just save the smart object and the changes will be updated in your main document.

You will get a smart object update progress box and then you will see the result in the image.

Step 5 - Layer Mask and enhanced shadows

OK now that we have everything adjusted in the 3D realm, we will continue with more traditional Photoshop techniques; let's make a mask for our text layer.

And choose this standard Photoshop blocky brush.

Now let's mask off the border of the letters as shown here, to emphasize the rock appearance of the texture cutting in some imperfections on the edges.

We will paint this mask following the features in the rock texture and also at the bottom taking into consideration the water flow as shown here.

Now continue masking the rest of the letter border as shown here.

Now on top let's create a levels layer and adjust it as shown here.

Now this will have a strong darkening effect; yet we will only use it in selected areas so go ahead and fill the mask with black so its all hidden.

So now that we have our mask filled with black we will mask in the darkening effect; so select the brush tool and change the color to white.

We will use the same blocky brush but reduce the size to about 28px

Now we will increase the shadows in the obvious shaded areas of our letters as shown here.

And continue with each letter as indicated. You can see right away how this helps set in the letters on to the scene.

Step 6 - Vegetation and Moss

Time to add some vegetation and moss to our letters so we build up the detail we need so they fit better with the image. We will do this the easy way using the clone tool.

Let's keep our blocky brush but reduce its size to about 3px.

Let's now enable all these settings in the brush palette with pen pressure enabled for all

Then we will need a new layer as a destination for our clone work.

But our clone source will be from our base image itself, so select the base layer and select a clone source as shown.

Then select our new layer back again and start painting in with the clone tool to add some vegetation and moss detail on top of the rock letters.

As many times as you need, go back to the base layer to select a new clone source; but don't forget to go back to the new layer to apply it.

Continue with all the letters as shown here, of course this is a very personal step so your result may vary from this.

Be sure to follow the rock structure from the texture and don't overdo the moss cloning.

Step 7 - Water

Let's now touch up the water so it fits the new letters better; so for this create a new layer.

We will keep our 44 blocky brush but reduce its size to only 2px.

Sample a clear color from the water itself and paint in a bit of a stream here suggesting water going through these two letters.

Then at the back of the E also paint some tiny stream that hints of water going out the back of this letter.

Paint in the same between these other two letters.

And finally, what I think is a very important detail, some water coming out of the hole in the A.

Now sample a light green from the image as shown here.

And add a bit of green to what we have painted inside the A as shown.

Then sample a bit darker green.

And paint in as shown here.

OK nicely done, now go back to the almost white sample.

And touch up the tiny stream as shown here.

And continue detailing the other painted sections of water making the flow more apparent.

Make sure you try to follow the rest of the water flow and create swirling water where needed.

And there we have it, this is what we should have so far, where the stream seems to hug each letter border.

Step 8 - A Couple of adjustment layers

Now let's add a couple of layers to make our overall scene more dramatic and intimate. First off let's do a levels layer and adjust it as shown here.

Now choose a big soft brush of about 400px.

OK the levels layer you noticed it darkens the overall scene, yet we need to brush of in the mask with black to let some of the light in as shown here.

Easy enough now create a Black and White adjustment layer, set it to multiply and reduce its opacity a bit.

Adjust the settings in the B&W layer as shown here.

You can see this new layer provides us with a bit more of darkness but more important some intense mood to the scene.

But again we only want this layer to affect so much of our scene so we will mask off all over with our soft brush as shown here, and of course change the brush size as needed.

Step 9 - Blue tint to water

Just a quick adjustment, I really don't like the green look of the water so I decided to make it more bluish, so let's make a photo filter layer for this with these settings.

We don't want this effect anywhere but the water so let's fill in the mask with black so its all gone.

Make the soft brush about 52 px.

And with white selected just start masking in the blue tone of the cooling filter.

Of course reduce the brush size where needed to brush in those tight places.

Be sure to keep the mask limited to just the water and this is what you should have by now; then just reduce the opacity of the layer a bit as shown below, and that is it we have a more water looking water :)

Step 10 - Light coming in

Now we will create a new layer that we will use to create some light glow and subtle streaks coming in to our scene. So select first the gradient tool.

Pick up this gradient from the gradient file.

And in a new layer just drag all the way across a big circular gradient.

Now of course we will be creatively masking this effect just where we want it, so create a mask for this layer.

So to start masking off we need a very big soft brush such as this one here.

Then select black and start masking off the layer as shown here.

Then reduce the brush size a bit to about 200px

And keep working with how those light streams come into the scene.

Now let's change to white and mask in some of what we have hidden. As you can see this is pretty much a back and forth process to get an effect we like.

So we now mask in some of those light streams as shown here.

And then go back to the black color to mask off and adjust those streams again

This is again a matter of personal taste how much light streams you want in the scene.

Step 11 - Subtle highlights

OK as you can see here I have all the work layers grouped, and the adjustment layers outside the group. What we are going to do now its duplicate the group.

And then let's merge the group so we have a flat image layer to work with.

Now let's drag the resulting image layer all the way to the top of the stack.

We will now adjust the levels for this layer directly; not an adjustment layer. So go to the image menu and select levels from there.

Now in the levels dialog box adjust the settings as shown here. You can type in the values to be more precise.

Great now we will need yet another layer mask so go ahead and create it.

And of course we will only need this bright layer to affect small sections of our image, so go ahead and fill the layer mask with black so its all gone.

Then let's pick a tiny soft brush such as this one here.

Change the color to white.

Now here we have this section without any work on this layer and below you can see where I painted in with the mask some subtle highlights.

And here you can see the text without any highlights and the work that has been done below with all the highlights. The best way to get a feel for what has been added is to compare the images or better yet look at the video where you see all the action happening.

Step 12 - Final shadow

For this last step what we need to do is add some shadow that is cast on the water to finalize the realistic look of the scene. We will do this with a levels layer, so go ahead and create it plus adjust it as shown here.

And again since we don't need this layer's influence anywhere but some specific sections let's fill the mask with black so its all gone.

Now let's select our soft brush and make it about 17px

And just start masking in some of the shadow as shown here.

And continue with these other sections of the water where we would get shadow from the finalized light setting.

Once you have all shadows in place just adjust the layer opacity and set its mode to multiply.

And that is it the final detail to our EARTH 3D text.

Final Image

That is the end of it we have successfully finalized our 3D text on to our scene and made it look cool and blended it, that was fun, hope you guys had fun also, as always be sure to send me an e-mail if you have some issues and also to show off your results. Thanks for your time and support; see you on the next one.

I was born in Mexico City, worked and studied photography at Eastman Kodak while training in minilab management and traditional darkroom techniques. Now I am steadily growing in the freelance world on matte painting, digital art/illustration and even some 3d modeling.